Displaced Execs Take Longer To Land New Positions - Brief Article

The findings of a recent survey, at first glance, sound bleak: Displaced executives earning $100,000 or more took longer to find new jobs in 1999 than they did in 1998. But there's a silver lining to that apparently dark cloud. Two reasons why the executives took longer to land on their feet are that they are receiving more generous severance packages and that, equipped with refined lob search skills, they are avoiding the tendency to panic and take the first available opening.

OI Partners Inc., an international career consulting corporation based in Parsippany, N.J., and the College of Saint Rose in Albany, N.Y., jointly surveyed 400 displaced executives who participated in outplacement programs. They found that the "landing time" for those earning $200,000 to $250,000 increased by 63 percent from 1998 to 1999, from 3.9 months to 6.3 months.

In the $150,000 to $199,000 range, the increase was 42 percent, from 3.2 months in 1998 to 4.5 months last year. Executives earning $100,000 to $149,000 saw their landing times increase by an average of 31 percent, from 4.1 months in 1998 to 5.4 months in 1999.

"This increase in landing time suggests that workers are taking advantage of the need for top talent in today's tight job market and are becoming more selective in the jobs they eventually take," says OI Partners President Ron Scott.

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